108 Responses

One more ref bash - His advantage was very short and occasionally non-existent. At one point he had advantage to the ABs, they never crossed the advantage line, lost the ball and Barnes said "play on".

The reason the advantage was not played was that it was a knock on adv rather than penalty adv which is rather more extended. More to the point was the infringing at the breakdown hands etc in the last quarter. Not spotted by the touchies or if it was spotted not acted on. But, we lost. We lost because we weren't good enough. We lost because the french had the killer instinct and took their opportunities, we were lacking when we had to adapt.Forward passes? We've scored off them before.Yellow card? Shouldn't put yourself in a position to get pinged. We Lost NZ, Again, Handle it.I don't really think you can criticise the intellectual rigour of McCaw. Dux of his school, certainly not a lightweight.What's that I hear in the distance? Could it be the great NZ clobbering machine working itself up into a fervour. A nation collectively wringing it's hands over a game. That's right NZ (say it slowly) a game.

I don't blame the referee - you have to ask why the IRB chose to blood an inexperienced referee in a RWC quarter final between the number one ranked team and the host nation.

The NZRFU has to now sit down and work out if we want to be the Harlem Globetrotters of international rugby or if we want to be the RWC champions. We can't be both. Personally, I would like the All Blacks to be world champions not world clowns.

But, we lost. We lost because we weren't good enough. We lost because the french had the killer instinct and took their opportunities, we were lacking when we had to adapt.

All that. And I think I'd be harder on McCaw than you are: he was responsible for the way they played under pressure.

Yellow card? Shouldn't put yourself in a position to get pinged

It's hard to see how McAllister could really be blamed for that -- it wasn't even a penalty. I really think Barnes lost all composure there, as evidenced by his nine blasts on the whistle afterwards.

Honestly, even though Paddy O'Brien's telling us all to man up, I see this as a bit like his shocking display in France vs Fiji in 1999, which he has since publicly regretted. It was a really poor refereeing display that had a significant impact on the result.

The NZRFU has to now sit down and work out if we want to be the Harlem Globetrotters of international rugby or if we want to be the RWC champions. We can't be both. Personally, I would like the All Blacks to be world champions not world clowns.

And yet half the commentariat is lamenting the fact that they didn't throw it around enough. There was nothing soft about the forward effort, was there?

I guess its inevitable that knives will come out for the players and coaches, but do we really have to sh*t on our team after every World Cup? Will we do to Carter and McCaw what we did to Carlos Spencer and Andrew Mehrtens?

Barnes didn't have a great game. At times it looked like he was only watching one team. Still, our scrum and lineout were strong, our forwards were generally outstanding, particularly Williams. We played some good rugby. We didn't disgrace ourselves. France turned up, and fate did that horrible twisty thing it seems to do every four years.

We wheeled one and Richie McCaw was pinged for not binding properly (marginal but that's cool, Grant Fox muttered "I thought you were still allowed to turn the scrum in rugby"). We then wheeled the next one and it was only called when all the All Blacks stood up and looked at Barnes. Perhaps he was a little scared. Poor little bloke.

ps. Just realised I've been writing "we" as short hand for "the All Blacks". :)